Long Way to Ba Sing Se
by the-little-guru
Summary: The sole freeman of the Red Lotus stumbles across a man of the past when Republic City's spirit portal opens up. He runs away to Ba Sing Se in hopes of achieving an anonymous life, but his traveling partner is not so compliant. The most cracky awkward thing ever. Written for found 5 of the probending circuit.


a/n:

Position: Manager for Fire Ferrets

Prompts: Your pairing makes up after a huge fight; fear; Adventure; Serpent's Pass

Pairing: Zhao/Ghazan (horrible. I know.)  
Element: Lava

Words: 3366

* * *

He wasn't quite sure what brought on the decision to go to Ba Sing Se. Perhaps it was the fact the city might give him a chance at anonymity. Perhaps it was to see the aftereffects of the Lotus' small victory if the fight for freedom, even if it were temporary. It could even be that he was getting old and sentimental, and started to have crazy thoughts, and desires to go to his hometown. He'd lost his entire crew, the entire Red Lotus, and he was one of the last few people who were still alive after collapsing the cave of their headquarters, a selfish attempt at martyrdom. He must have been losing his grip.

Perhaps that was also the reason he was sheltering a violent, insane man who he found wandering around in the outskirts of Republic City.

Ghazan looked over at the sleeping form, the short broad back turned on him, a man muttering strange things about slaying the moon.

He rolled his eyes. The idiot had barely spoken a word to him since their first encounter, yet he was very strange, very intriguing. Where did he come from? He was obviously at least part Fire, that much was obvious from his ruddy yellow eyes and archaic fire navy uniform.

That uniform was another enigma all in itself, a worn, bloody, burned, and salt encrusted hunk of old metal. So much so, that it must have seen a fight. But why was the man in a fight? How did he even get such a high ranking imperial fire navy uniform in the first place?

It was all very irritating. The man wouldn't even tell Ghazan his name. He just glared up at the lavabender like a particularly disgusting thing on the bottom of his shoe. Despite having travelled together for the better part of three months, the arrogant man just seemed to avoid Ghazan as much as possible, turning his face away awkwardly and never meeting his eyes.

Of course, all the awkwardness came after the strange man tried to murder Ghazan in his sleep.

The first time Ghazan found the firebender, he'd been wary of the strange man, who seemed confused, pissed off, and trapped in his own little world. But Ghazan had been travelling around on his own for so long, three and a half years without telling anyone of his identity. He changed everything about himself, he sewed flesh colored ink over his original lavabending tattoos and he trimmed his mustache and his hair to a short black mohawk. He basically created a new identity, and it was like he was back on his wooden prison, except this prison was a self induced web of deceit which he had to maintain at all costs.

At this stage, any company would be good company.

He just wished the current company was a bit more...talkative. Amicable. A charismatic anti-hero like himself.

Ghazan looked into the dusky sky from the cliffs of the narrow pass across the strait in front of Ba Sing Se, then back to the insane, grumpy, fire nation man, still mumbling in his sleep. They would have to get going soon, in the night when people could not see them and get too curious about strange men crossing the Serpent's Pass.

Suddenly, Ghazan grinned wickedly and stood up, assuming an earthbending stance.

Then, he stomped his foot in the ground, causing a platform of earth to shoot up right under his...acquaintance.

"ARGHHHHHH!" bellowed the Fire Nation man flailing wildly as the earth under him surged up, launching him five feet in the air.

Ghazan stifled a snicker as the fire nation man landed back on the ground with a thud.

"Rise and shine." he said smugly, raising a wall of earth to block the oncoming fireball.

The man rose up with a wheeze. His sideburns spread wider against his monkey like face, which was contorted in a comical grimace of rage.

"Rah!" he growled, recklessly shooting another roaring wave of fire at Ghazan. He looked enraged, a creature without a single ounce of self control.

Ghazan was getting alarmed now. What would happen if someone saw them having a fight? They might call the police or come to investigate, and then the police might have a lead on his trail. He must get to the city, where he can hide in the plain sight of anonymity, where he can hide in any of the dozens of square kilometers in the crowded lower ring.

"Stop now!" he said facilely, easily blocking another onslaught from the crazed firebending, "We'll be seen if you use so much fire."

The man paid no attention, bellowing something about ruined goals and the Fire Lord.

Ghazan gave a huff of irritation. As the fire nation man took another step, he created a gap in the ground, causing the firebender to sink into his ground up to his knees. Then, he created two bonds for his wrists when the man's hands hit the ground. Then, Ghazan bent a ring of stones around his neck. Not enough to injure him, of course. Just enough to restrict his breathing.

In the early years of the Red Lotus, P'li had told them that fire comes from the breath, and irregular breathing results in weaker fire. That knowledge was coming in quite handy now.

"You will stop shooting fire." smiled Ghazan down at the enraged firebender. As he flaunted his height and power, he felt a wave of nostalgia for the days of the Red Lotus, when he could be open about his identity and abilities. As shameful as it sounded, he'd missed the feeling of power, of eliciting fear in the weak and awe from the strong.

Too bad for him. He still had too much self preservation to even consider dying for 'the cause' again. He was alive and the rest of his gang were not. They would never be; they would never accomplish their dreams, so he would just have to settle for a mean life as a lowly commoner once again.

Clenching his fist, Ghazan tightened the hold of the rocks around the Fire Nation man's neck before hurling him in the other direction. The other man's body tumbled across the ground, skidding to a halt precariously close to the edge of the cliff.

Admirably, the other man sprang onto his feet right away and immediately tried to shoot fire again.

Ghazan sighed irritably and raised the earth to bind the other man again, right on the edge of the tallest bluff on the Serpent's Pass. After a moment of consideration, he decided that it was probably better to just dispose of the crazy firebender. The guy was so much of a hassle to drag around, and he couldn't let the man live since he was a liability to Ghazan's secrecy as a fugitive.

Oh well. The acquaintanceship had been good while it lasted.

Ghazan delicately drew a few small streams of lava out of the ground, twirling them together until they formed a small drill. Then, he lunged backwards and prepared to deliver the killing blow.

At the same time, the trapped firebender's eyes widened with panic when he realized what Ghazan was about to do. Then, a moment before the searing spiral of liquid earth met his chest, the man shouted, "STOP!" with a voice cracking from lack of use.

Ghazan froze, with the glowing lava suspended a hairsbreadth from the man's chest, so hot that the dull brown cloth of his tunic began to darken and curl into itself with heat.

"Well, nice to hear you finally speak." said Ghazan, feeling strangely relieved as he tossed the blob of cooling lava into the strait behind the firebender, "I was beginning to think you were mute."

The trapped man looked down angrily, eyes lowered in shame. Like he was so proud that he would rather die than allowing another person to spare his life. He spat on the ground.

"What is your name?" asked Ghazan, opting to forgive the blob of saliva on the ground.

"Leave, filthy peasant." growled the man.

"Hello, Leave-Filthy-Peasant," smirked Ghazan, "I wonder what your parents were thinking when they named y-"

"Zhao! Admiral Zhao. Release me or I burn your land to the ground!" roared Zhao, still not meeting his eyes.

Ghazan stepped back and looked down coolly. Then he created a thin whip out of lava and slashed across the edge of Zhao's face, singeing off the tips of his sideburn. The firebender gave a barely perceptible flinch of fear.

"Remember who's in charge." admonished Ghazan. Then, he paused for a moment and backed away with an awkward prickling of guilt. He was starting to turn into nothing more than a bully, like a well endowed monarch who took pride in fear and subservience in the nation's citizens. And his cruelty wasn't even for a cause. It was for nothing more than the self gratifying feeling of power. And if he thought hard about it, the feeling was so very...empty.

With a huff of contrition, Ghazan turned his back and slammed his foot into the ground, crumbling apart the stone bonds that had trapped Zhao.

Surprisingly, the firebender made no attempt to attack Ghazan again.

Good. Perhaps he didn't need to die after all.

Ghazan turned back around to face the firebender and he jumped in surprise. Zhao had crept up behind him in a flash, and had Ghazan backed against the wall of the cliff. But with a shift of his bare feet, Ghazan shifted their positions so he was on the outside. He didn't like the feeling of being cornered, even if it was only by an unusually short, feisty, old firebender.

Ghazan looked down, amused by how the top of this Zhao person's head barely went up to his nose. It was quite strange; men in this day and age were not usually so short. Not even Zaheer had been as short as his present company. Zhao was short enough that Ghazan could not even see his face properly.

"Look up." said Ghazan.

As predicted, Zhao stubbornly refused.

Ghazan gave an irritable jerk on the long hair on the back of Zhao's head, forcing his face up.

For some odd reason, the firebender complied, only giving him a small glare, which gave Ghazan a very uncomfortable skittering feeling.

Now that he thought about it, this was actually the first time Ghazan had the chance to look Zhao full in the face, and he was surprised by how authentically fire nation the man was, almost like a member of the royal other man's narrowed, reddish eyes were tapered at the ends, very small fine lines of age crinkling across his sharp cheekbones.

Then his gaze travelled further down the face, taking in the bushy sideburns and pointed nose. Greying hair contrasting with pale, evenly toned skin. Down to the long dimples framing his mouth, which was curved in an arrogant snarl.

Suddenly, Zhao's hands snapped forwards, flames licking out of the center of the palms. But he was sadly out of practice. Ghazan could tell that Zhao had not practiced his bending for a long time. There was no discipline, no conciseness in the action. Plus, the man seemed to have a slower than average reaction time. Ghazan had no trouble snatching his wrists and pinning them spread eagle against the wall of the cliff.

The move brought two of them even closer together, steaming, furious puffs of breath drifting out of Zhao's mouth and across Ghazan's dark face. Their noses were practically touching, eyes glowering at each other with identical grimaces of anger...

And then Ghazan's brain shut down from there.

Something (it must have been a malevolent spirit) prompted Ghazan to tilt his face forwards just a hair's breadth. Just enough to smash his mouth awkwardly against Zhao's.

And it was awkward indeed. The kiss was a gasping flurry of painful nose nudges, clacking teeth, and a dizzying falling sensation in the pit of Ghazan's stomach. After an infinitely long moment, the two broke apart due to the inconvenient necessity for air.

Ghazan stared incredulously into Zhao's eyes for another second before dazedly releasing his wrists and stumbling backwards to the edge of the cliff.

The Koh was that!?

He ran his hands through the strands of his choppy black hair. What had come over him? What was wrong with him? And most importantly of all, Why wasn't the crazy firebender resisting him? In fact, this Zhao guy seemed to be a pretty enthusiastic participant.

Ghazan was still so dazed that he didn't notice his "enthusiastic participant" glowering at him dangerously. Zhao hurtled recklessly towards Ghazan, tackling him to the ground...and off the cliff.

It took a long moment before Ghazan's mind registered that they were falling down a seventy meter wall of rock, straight into the water domain of a vicious, oversized serpent that atehumans as snacks. He suddenly snapped to attention.

Ghazan clung to the collar of Zhao's tunic with one hand and dug his other hand into the stone cliff, but to no avail. His hand ripped through the rock, tearing a vertical line straight down the drop, but did nothing to slow their descent. Desperately, Ghazan melted half the cliffside, turning it into one gigantic glowing flood of liquid stone, pouring down the sheer precipice and hardening in cold sea below. The surge of lava flooded over the jagged, pointy stones at the bottom of the cliff while waves of seawater hissed and boiled against the cooling magma.

Ghazan and his violent, unreasonable….acquaintance…. tumbled painfully onto the burning pumice. All around them, salty steam sizzling off the rock platform.

"That was incredibly brainless. I'm really going to kill you now." threatened Ghazan halfheartedly at Zhao. It provoked no fear. Instead, the firebender was looking at him with a heated glare of wary admiration. It made Ghazan feel strangely smug.

"You aren't going to thank me for saving you?" he asked cockily.

"I don't need your help, peasant." snapped Zhao with no sign of his former respect as he turned away pretentiously. Unfortunately, there was nothing in front of him except for open seawater. When the firebender turned back, he noticed that the rocky cliff was entirely smoothed out from the magma flow, and was too steep to climb up on his own.

"I'm earthbending us up. Get on the inside." said Ghazan, stepping aside to let the firebender stand closer to the stone at the base of the cliff.

Zhao grudgingly complied. As he passed by, Ghazan smirked to himself and quickly smacked him across the behind. Then he hastily shoved the earth platform upwards before the furious firebender could burn him alive.

Reflecting back on the event, Zhao realized that a lot could have gone wrong. In fact, a lot had gone wrong already! His firebending was pathetically weak, he could have died (although that would be preferable to the humiliation he now suffered), and he was travelling with a filthy earth lout who he was growing an unhealthy attachment to. Very unhealthy. It was awful enough that he other man was a commoner, but he also happened to be a...a man! It was most undignified for a officer like Zhao to grow an attachment with such an unsuitable creature.

So for the better part of the three months he'd been found, Zhao had been avoiding any direct confrontation with Ghazan. Not meeting his eyes and not speaking to him. (Which was excruciating, considering how often he felt the urge to tell the peasant to shut up.)

Today, for some reason, he just snapped. Dramatically.

At first, Zhao'd wanted to get rid of Ghazan by blasting him into the Serpent's bay, since he knew that most earthbenders could not swim. But he'd underestimated the earthbender. Or should he say the LAVAbender.

It was simply unheard of! How could such a powerful individual emerge from the depths of the crude, dirt kingdom? Although Zhao hated the man, (he was going to assume hate was the cause of the uncomfortable squirming in his stomach) he couldn't help but be slightly awed. He couldn't help but give in to the waywardness. He'd always been bad at temperance or self control. And besides, he had the nagging suspicion that some spirits were involved in landing in landing him in this place, and there'd be nobody left to judge him anyways.

Finally, everything burst out. When Ghazan had made the first move, Zhao couldn't find it in himself to resist.

Disgusting.

They were nearly at the end of the Serpent's Pass now, and Ghazan was more than a little surprised that they hadn't been discovered (between the very violent and visible bursts of fire and magma) or eaten by the giant sea dragon in the strait.

Daylight fell on them. It was time to settle down and wait until nighttime was upon them before they broke into the walled city.

Ghazan bent an earth tent for them to stay in, and Zhao immediately flopped down inside and turned his back. Meanwhile, Ghazan stood on the edge of the cave and looked down at the short, proud firebender who was obviously sulking. For a moment, he was tempted just lay down somewhere else and let the grumpy man sulk.

But no. He sauntered up behind Zhao and looked down for a moment before lying down behind and wrapped his arms around.

Immediately, Zhao tensed up and tried to wriggle away, but made no attempt to attack him. Encouraged by this fact, Ghazan tightened his hold until the two of them were pressed together, front to back.

It was a surprisingly good fit for two such dissimilar people. Somehow, it was strangely satisfying to hold and tightly squeeze his...acquaintance...the firebender was like a very large, violent, mean-spirited and monkeyish teddy bear.

After another stiff moment, a sigh came out of Zhao, very heavy and resigned as all the tension drained out of him and he leaned backwards into Ghazan. It was like he decided to let go of his previous pretension and give into his weak-willed sentiments.

"Are you still pissed off?" rumbled Ghazan smarmily in Zhao's ear.

"Yes." he growled in return

"Great." Ghazan smirked back, giving an awkward squeeze that caused all the air to exit the Zhao's lungs. It was...pleasant.

Somehow, he'd been the lone survivor of the Order of the Red Lotus, and he could not find the will to keep carrying out its goals. It had been a good adventure while it lasted, and the goal of freedom was noble. But in all honesty, he'd been in the Order more for the comradeship than anything else.

Somehow, he was now confident that the strange firebender wouldn't leave him no matter what.

Living the rest of his days in an unbalance fugitive lifestyle didn't seem so bad now.


End file.
